Broadway to honor Roger Rees by dimming lights on Wednesday

FILE - In this May 24, 2006, file photo, Roger Rees, artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Mass., introduces the 2006 season during a news conference in New York. Rees, the Tony Award-winning Welsh-born actor and director who appeared on TV’s “The West Wing” and was a mainstay on Broadway playing Gomez in “The Addams Family” and Chita Rivera’s doomed lover in “The Visit,” died Friday night, July 10, 2015, his representative Rick Miramontez said. He was 71. (AP Photo/Jim Cooper, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Broadway theaters will dim their marquee lights on Wednesday night in memory of Roger Rees, the Tony Award-winning Welsh-born actor and director.

The Broadway League says the lights will be dimmed for one minute at 7:45 p.m. Rees died Friday night at his home in New York after a brief battle with cancer.

Rees played the title character in the original production of “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” in England and on Broadway. He won an Olivier Award and then a Tony. When it was adapted for TV, he earned an Emmy nomination.

Rees also played the snobbish Robin Colcord on TV’s “Cheers” and the British ambassador, Lord John Marbury, in “The West Wing.” Other recent TV credits include “Elementary” and “The Good Wife.”